Greater Good

Civic bodies being the oldest form of government have a special place in human societies as opposed to the governments of the state. They exist to act, there is less of a deliberative or legislative function. Citizens cannot avoid interaction with the workings of this last tier of government and the result of large scale apathy can lead to what game theorists call the Tragedy of the Commons. This situation is illustrated in the photograph taken near KBR park in Hyderabad today : What happens when each person leads his Buffalo to graze in public parks?

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) Election will be held on the 23rd of November. The last election was held way back in 2002, the council was dissolved after the expiry of its 5 year term. The Corporation was run by the state government through the Commissioner for the past two years until the courts forced the government's hand, hardly a beacon of democracy. The spectacle of mini-rallies are now suddenly seen around the city and suddenly we have "leaders" on every street corner. Post general elections all this seems like comic relief.

Although local body elections are of lesser consequence than state and national elections in the Indian scenario, yet after the 74th Constitutional Amendment of 1992 there is renewed focus on municipal and panchayat elections. Consequentially there is more politicizing of issues which are essentially of a resource distribution and service delivery nature. Therefore there is a huge police bandobust around the city and residents see more security forces out and about than after a bomb scare. All the 5000 licensed weapon holder are directed to surrender their arms during the elections and history sheeters are to be monitored.

Issues that plague Hyderabad are infact no different from any city of a similar size and class around the world - electricity, safe water, roads, affordable housing, sanitation, taxes and so on. What is different though is the composition of the new corporation, GHMC has been expanded to include vast tracts of land (and people) around the city and hence is all the more powerful. With the expanding role of the local media as an extortion agency, the small time politicians too have more mouths to feed before they get their piece of the cake.

GHMC's annual budget of around Rs. 31 billion is controlled by 150 corporators. If done right, the corporation could in theory be looted for about Rs. 200 million per corporator each year (if swindled to 100% efficiency). Therefore the citizens of Hyderabad have to hope that there might yet be some progress on the civic amenities front since attaining such a high hit ratio by the politicians is improbable due to lack of coordination, incompetence, prevalence of individual over collective greed or simple guilt.


More Reading:
1. Indian Express: 20% of Licensed Gun Owners yet to be deposited arms
2. GHMC 2009 Elections Link
3. The Hindu: Media greed during elections causes serious ethical questions
4. Science Magazine: Tragedy of the Commons by Garrett Hardin, 1968